Jaylen Brown belongs in the conversation for NBA MVP, Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan said before his team faced Brown’s Celtics on Monday night.
Donovan shared his lofty praise for the Boston star after being asked how different the Celtics look to him without injured superstar Jayson Tatum, who has yet to play this season as he recovers from Achilles surgery.
Brown has thrived in Tatum’s absence, carrying the NBA’s fourth-best scoring average (30.1 points per game) into Monday’s game at TD Garden. The 29-year-old is on pace for career highs in a slew of statistical categories — including points and assists per game, and field-goal and true shooting percentages — and was coming off a sensational 50-point performance Saturday night against the Clippers.
“I’ve said when you lose great players, it’s always going to impact your team, but they’ve had very, very good personnel,” Donovan said pregame. “I was very surprised early in the year where a lot of people had (the Celtics) picked. I have a lot of respect for Jaylen. He’s playing at probably an MVP level — at least in consideration.”
Oddsmakers don’t view Brown as a realistic MVP challenger at this stage, but he’s climbing the board. His latest odds from DraftKings Sportsbook had him tied with Detroit’s Cade Cunningham for third-best (+5000), behind Luka Doncic (+370) and defending MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the heavy favorite at -400. (Three-time winner Nikola Jokic is having another MVP-caliber campaign but might not reach the 65-game threshold to qualify after injuring his knee last week.)
After dropping 50 over the weekend, Brown, who drew motivation from his Eastern Conference Player of the Month snub, called himself “the best two-way player in the world.”
Donovan also shouted out several other players who’ve helped the Celtics exceed preseason expectations without their longtime centerpiece. Boston entered Monday a half-game out of second place in the Eastern Conference at 22-12, and near the top of the NBA in point differential (third), offensive rating (second) and net rating (third).
“(Payton) Pritchard, I’ve always had great respect for. (Derrick) White, the same thing. (Sam) Hauser can really shoot it,” Donovan said. “They have a really, really good, high-IQ team, shooting team. I think the pickup of (Anfernee) Simons coming off the bench has given them a lot of firepower. Tatum, obviously, is elite offensively and can score a lot of different ways, but I think what happens is when you have a big-time scorer that goes out like that, it doesn’t necessarily fall just on one guy. Everybody kind of shares in that, so to speak, and they’ve been, all year long, pretty elite offensively.
“They’ve got the fourth-best offense. And they share it, they play together, and I think they’ve got a really, really good high IQ. They’ve got guys that can play downhill and get to the rim. I think (Neemias) Queta and (Luka) Garza have given them rim-rollers, though Garza is probably taking more threes than Queta is. But they have stretch guys all over the floor, so there’s a lot of spacing there, and they’ve all been able to probably pick up a certain part of what Tatum brought to the table.”
Tatum could rejoin that group in the coming months. He has not ruled out an in-season return and is, by all accounts, progressing well in his rehab.
Road trip takeaways
What stood out most to Joe Mazzulla during the Celtics’ recently completed five-game road trip, during which the team went 4-1 while averaging 128.6 points per game.
“Defense,” Boston’s head coach said. “That’s obviously something that we’ve got to continue to get better at. I thought our defense (withstood) some hot shooting, some talented players, some fast-paced teams. We were able to do that. And I think the rebounding on both ends of the floor. Two games ago, we had our highest offensive rebounding game from each individual player that we’ve had the entire season, so that was important for us. I just thought we did some good stuff on the margins, and we’ve got to keep that up.”
The Celtics defeated the Indiana Pacers, Utah Jazz, Sacramento Kings and Clippers by an average of 18.2 points per game. Their lone blemish on the trip was a 114-108 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers that featured 19 C’s turnovers.
Boston entered Monday with a 17-5 record in their last 22 games, with four of those losses by single digits.
Back home
Monday’s game opened a four-game homestand for the Celtics — and capped a stretch of seven straight games against sub-.500 teams. Their next three opponents (the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday, Toronto Raptors on Friday and San Antonio Spurs on Saturday) all entered Monday ranked fourth or better in their respective conferences.
The Nuggets matchup lost some of its shine, however, now that Jokic will be sidelined for the next several weeks. Jokic’s backup, Jonas Valanciunas, also is out with a calf strain, meaning Denver will be shorthanded in the frontcourt for its lone visit to TD Garden this season.
It remains to be seen whether San Antonio — owner of the league’s third-best record as of Monday behind Oklahoma City and Detroit — will have its superstar big man when the Spurs come to town this weekend. Victor Wembanyama hyperextended his knee in a win over Indiana on New Year’s Eve and missed the last two games.
No Wemby on Saturday would mean more minutes for ex-Celtic Luke Kornet, who will be the first of Boston’s four championship-winning offseason departures to return to Causeway Street.
The 7-footer has been great for San Antonio after signing a four-year, $41 million contract this past summer, averaging personal bests in points, rebounds, assists and blocks per game. Kornet had one of his most productive games of the season on Saturday, posting 23 points on 10-of-12 shooting, eight rebounds, three assists and five blocks in a loss to Portland.
Off the rim
The Celtics started the same lineup for the second straight game, with the veteran Hauser again getting the nod over Jordan Walsh. Walsh’s streak of 20 consecutive starts ended Saturday in LA, but he still logged 30 minutes against the Clippers and finished with 13 points, 13 rebounds and two blocks. … One of Boston’s Eastern Conference foes could be gearing up for a major move. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported the Hawks are negotiating with Trae Young’s camp on a trade that would ship the point guard out of Atlanta. Where could he land? NBA insider Marc Stein reported the Washington Wizards are a “legitimate potential trade destination” for the four-time All-Star.